Iglesia Parroquial de Santa Teresa de Jesús, Carmelo, Barcelona.

San Jordi in Barcelona, and millions of females who would be perfectly happy eating hay are receiving roses from males who have problems reading a football shirt, never mind the book of 500 Catalan jokes they will get in return for their floral investment. We ecolefties disincline naturally from needlessy fucking up Lake Victoria and [...]

I once read some complete nonsense by UCD prof Clarence Major, so I do kind of wonder whether he’s got any evidence for the claim (Prentiss Riddle → MSNBC) that relates hip “to the Wolof verb hepi (‘to see’) or hipi (‘to open one’s eyes’)”. The Peace Corps Wolof-English dictionary (PDF) lists xippi, but they [...]

Arnie’s put a stop to their dirty games.

They speak (or someone speaks) Catalan in the Edinburgh branch of Harvey Nichols, according to The Scotsman. The assistant from Georgia, we are told, is called Nestan Rasmussen, which sounds pretty unlikely, and the manager claims that English is also spoken, which inclines me to disbelieve the whole story.

(Denver Post) Trevor is Dutch and has just returned to Barcelona from Holland when I spoke with him. He plays a didgeridoo, a long, hollowed-out eucalyptus tree branch. The Aborigines of Australia developed the musical instrument, which makes a beautiful, deep, throbbing sound. His first day back in mid-November has gone well, he says. The [...]

Some of the locals would have you believe that Barcelona is the global capital of crazy. Not at all, for, as Holmes remarked in The Adventure of the Copper Beeches, “the lowest and vilest alleys in London[, Barcelona, whatever] do not present a more dreadful record of sin than does the smiling and beautiful countryside.” [...]

Recognising an urgent need, Barcelona’s excellent Institut Français has undertaken to explain love to the Catalans (translation Googlebotted for style, steam, and speed):

I take it the royal palaces are next.

Localisation – like most developments in publishing – has benefited greatly from the needs of the porn industry. “I speak Spanish to God, Italian to women, French to men and German to my horse,” said Charles V of Spain, without, alas, going into detail. I assume, however, that his Italian will not have been the [...]

In an article on the Madrid bombings Michael Carlin (via HispaLibertas) proclaims the doom of a Spain trapped in fear and ignorance. No reason to get excited, I would have thought, since the British have known that this boat ain’t going nowhere for at least 416 years. Nevertheless, I did enjoy Mr Carlin getting all [...]

Marleen Zachte quotes the results of a sex survey allegedly undertaken by German rubber and aluminium mag, Men’s Car, which shows that BMW drivers do it most and Porsche drivers least – if we are to believe the respondents. As usual the polluters did not dare ask cyclists.

OK, this blog is officially enamoured of Quaderns, which as well as calling Kaleboel un fenomenal poti poti now says we’re indispensable. A brown envelope is on its way to a smoke-filled office in Andorra.

Metrosexual. The Americans blame French cissies and Brit hacks, but the honours go to Galician AZ Alkmaar footballer, José Fortes Rodriguez:
Some women just don’t get it. They’re not used to being turned down. They say: Go on, you want me don’t you! I say: Am I talking Chinese? I don’t find you attractive. And then [...]

WiFi-SM (via wondering) sounds good:
I’ve been using WiFi-SM for one month and it’s amazing ! When somebody suffers on earth, not only I know it, but I can also feel a little bit of his/her pain. I don’t feel guilty anymore and I can enjoy life without limitation. I love WiFi-SM
Here’s the blurb:

More from Eurweb:

Apparently the fine children’s illustrator Honor Appleton (1879-1951) was not such a good girl after all:

There was a big discussion at choir last night about the frightful quality of semen in Barcelona. That’s not an infrequent topic of conversation, but this time it was at least partly based on quantitative evidence, namely a new comparative study by a local reproductive health institute.
The first deranged hypothesis was of a correlation between [...]

This is what I call a good post:

Like the British vis-à-vis the French, an influential current in Indonesian opinion remains convinced that the outside world is determined to destroy it with naughtiness. Some believe that, far from being innate or Islamic, the current bout of banning can be traced back to paranoia generated by the CIA’s attempts round 1960 to bring down [...]